I treated myself to a haircut and a trip to the Last Bookstore In America* today. Here’s what I found.
First, it took me a while to even find the bloody books. Here’s a photo. You walk in and are confronted with a WALL of Nook Stuff. (see the front door back there?) It used to be that when you walk into a bookstore you were bombarded with NYT bestsellers, magazines, and New Releases. Now I’m innundated with a product I have no interest in. Boo.
Ok, past that. I went in to see if maybe (just maybe!) Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon was out early, put on the shelf by a non-regulations-following bookseller. Where in the hell are the goddamn new releases? The first tower of books I find past the Nook Shit is “Dieting and Health”. Huh.
Ok, moving on.
I found an edition of Moby Dick that has notes and so forth, excellent! It’s an ugly book, printed like it came off a home desk-jet printer, but the material is good.
Next, there were three copies of M.L.N. Hanover’s Killing Rites. This cover is repellant to me. How many of these have we seen? How many of this type of novel have I started and tossed and is now decidedly on my Avoid catergory? However, I have been assured by MyAwfulReviews that this is not one of THOSE books, just ignore the cover. However, MAR also liked Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, so that’s a negative point. However, I really loved Leviathan Wakes, another novel by this same author (pen names). However, it’s got a Zia on the front. So I bought a copy to make up my own mind.
Next. Another stupid cover. Why do publishers ruin books in this way? Why don’t they just save themselves a buck and make plain-text cover that says: Steampunk Fantasy by an Author You’ve Read Before and like? Ok, sounds great! Steven Harper wrote a murder mystery on the Moon that was an enjoyable read and I have been looking forward to snother by him for a long time. This one is called The Doomsday Vault.
The Treasure I discovered is this other, previously unknown to me, novel by R. A. MacAvoy. MacAvoy has written a lot, and I really liked her Tea with the Black Dragon. Death and Ressurection looks to be more from the same universe, plus some Southwest-”y” spiritual elements tossed in. I love finding small presses that take risks like this. This publisher is Prime Books.
So, let’s dive in!
*I know there are other bookstores.
